Chargers could crank up tempo vs. Broncos

Denver's defense likely to see NFL's latest trend

ENGLEWOOD -- When studying the evolution of NFL offenses, it's important to ...

Wait a minute. The New England Patriots just ran another play.

Where were we? Oh, yes, just as Buddy Ryan came up with the "46 defense" to negate Bill Walsh's West Coast offense ...

Hold on. Stevan Ridley just ran for a first down and Tom Brady passed to Wes Welker for another first down. Rob Gronkowski caught one, Brandon Lloyd another, Ridley again and ...

Say, why were Derek Wolfe and Von Miller shifting from the right end to the left about two seconds after Ridley was sweeping around the end the Broncos' defenders just vacated?

When the Broncos defeated Pittsburgh in the season opener, they ran 55 plays. The Patriots ran 89 plays in their 31-21 victory against the Broncos last Sunday. Add in the eight penalties called when the Patriots had the ball, and Brady took 97 snaps -- almost double the 53 plays Oakland got off the previous week against Denver.

This wasn't Brady in the shotgun. This was the "machine gun" offense.

"Unbelievable how many plays they ran," said Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, who gets his turn against the Denver defense Monday night at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.

"With Rivers, you would think he would want to stick to what he does," Broncos defensive tackle Kevin Vickerson said. "But it's a copycat league. When one team has success with it against a team, you have to take a look at it.

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It would be a surprise if they didn't."

Jon Gruden, who will provide color commentary forESPN's "Monday Night Football" telecast of the Broncos-Chargers game, said when he was coaching the Raiders, owner Al Davis would place a "trend" reel on his desk each week.

"I had to watch every trend that's going around the league that particular week," Gruden said. "Are we missing a blitz, a new goal-line pattern or new red zone touchdown play? Something. Everybody's looking at that. And I'm sure Norv Turner and Philip Rivers -- they've been together a long time too -- I'm sure they know their offense where they can say, "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

Turner, San Diego's head coach going on his sixth season, isn't saying whether he will speed up his attack Monday night. Playing at such a rapid tempo is easier said than done, he said. It's not just the experienced Brady who allows the Patriots to go so fast. Their versatility at skill positions also helps. Gronkowski is a tight end who can catch, block and play fullback. Danny Woodhead is a tailback who can catch the ball out of the slot.

"They don't have to do a lot of substitutions to get done what they want to get done, so now they've streamlined it," Turner told the Denver media in a conference call last week. "We were back there last year and played them and got a good dose of it, and it's hard to handle."

A day late and

19 yards short

Hard to handle? There were two instances during the Patriots' quick-snap, 16-play touchdown possession in the third quarter that epitomized the Broncos' struggles. One was the aforementioned Ridley run around left end in the third quarter. A split second before Brady took the snap from under center; Wolfe and Miller rose up from right end and shifted to the left side of the Broncos' defensive front. Meanwhile, left end Elvis Dumervil was shifting to the right side.

Only problem was, the ball was snapped while the three Broncos were halfway through their shift. Dumervil was two steps past the middle linebacker area as Ridley ran around left end for a 19-yard gain. Later in the drive, Miller signaled to the Denver sideline that he needed a rest. He couldn't come out right then, though, because the Patriots were snapping the ball. After a first down at the Broncos' 28-yard line, Miller came off -- and couldn't get back on the field until seven snaps later (counting penalties).

"There were times I was looking for Von Miller," Gruden said. "Where's Von Miller? Is he hurt? Why is he out of the game? He couldn't get back on the field!"

The Patriots ran four consecutive plays in such a hurry, the Broncos couldn't substitute. Miller didn't get back on the field until it was second-and-goal at the 1.

Too late.

"That was certainly a different tape to watch, because of the pace and because of the fact that they were really in one personnel group for most of the game," Rivers said. "It was a little different film to watch."

The power of one word

Don't confuse the turbo tempo with sophistication. According to The Boston Globe, the Patriots used one word to call from a set of six plays. The film revealed three were running plays -- the zone stretch, the power run up the middle and a plunge play between the guard and tackle. The pass plays were mostly routed to come over the middle.

Patriot coach Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels would never tell, but their "keep it simple but hurry up about it" approach may have been implemented after watching the exotic strategies Denver defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio used to confuse the Raiders the previous week.

"If you want to run all these crazy blitzes you ran against the Raiders, you knocked Carson Palmer down, you've got everybody standing up in two-point stances, you want to have a nickel package, a dime package, a specialty pass rusher -- you want to do all that stuff?" Gruden said. "Not today you're not, because we're going to snap the ball before you can even say 'substitution.'"

Vickerson said it was as simple as Brady calling a running play when he saw two safeties in their normal spots and a passing play when he saw a single safety.

"That's what your quarterback has built an empire on," Gruden said, referring to Denver's Peyton Manning. "The difference with Manning is he knows with a split safety whether it's a weak rotation, a quarter-quarter-half (zone) or quarter-quarter-quarter-quarter, Tampa 2, man. He knows the difference in all of them."

It's universally agreed that if Manning is not the father of the no-huddle offense, he's at least its master. Couldn't the Broncos operate their offense at such a hyper pace?

"I don't think we need to necessarily copy anyone else at this point," Manning said. "I think we have everything here that we need to be successful, just kind of do it a little bit better."

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